Heyo, Gonna drop three quick stories on ya and then ask you what they all have in common. Here we go: 1. At the US Olympic Trials in 1988, during the final of the 200-meter individual medley, Summer Sanders was leading the pack at the 150-metter turn. She was 50-meters away from going to the Olympics. Sanders would end up placing third. Later, she reflected: "When I did lose, I understood it happened for a reason. Defeat meant I hadn't had enough experience going into the race. It never meant I was destined to fail again, that I had fallen into some impossible rut. Quite the contrary: I was in control. Failure just showed me what, exactly, I had to work on—my stroke, my dive, my turns. If I did the work, I had nothing to fear." 2. It's less than a year from the Beijing Olympics, and Michael Phelps is walking out of a Buffalo Wings restaurant in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He slips on the ice and breaks his wrist trying to brace the fall. For a short while, Phelps is mortified. His chance at Olympic history feels like it has been ripped away. After some discussion with his coach, Bob Bowman, Phelps realizes that he needs to double-down on his preparation. "In a weird way, the broken wrist gave me an urgency that in the long run turned out to be a positive." 3. How often does Olympic champion, world record holder, and freestyle legend Katie Ledecky "fail"? According to her former coach at NCAP, Bruce Gemmell, one of the greatest swimmers in history "fails" at practice… All. The. Time. "There are days she fails catastrophically," he said. "She fails in practice more than anybody in her [training] group, because she'll start out like, 'This is the pace I need to swim in the race, so I need to replicate it in practice.' And she'll go six repeats like that, and the tank goes empty and she just falls off. But you know what? She'll come back the next day and try it again. And on the third day, she'll nail it. And she's been doing this since the first day I walked on the deck with her." Okay. What do these three quotes have in common? They are textbook examples of an outlook that understands that failures are part of the process. Failures don't cripple them, or crush their identity, and they don't look externally for others to blame. They own and learn from their failures. Instead of viewing failures and setbacks as "proof" that they will never be successful, failures are used as a blueprint and motivational fuel for next-level improvement. Not learning from our setbacks is a problem. Got it. But it is worse than that. Because we have a dysfunctional relationship with failure and adversity, we end up actively avoiding it in the first place. Which means we end up doing stuff like: - Giving 75-80% of our best during hard workouts, because if we don't give our full and unvarnished best, then we have an excuse to fall back on
- Choosing the easier sets, intervals, and lanes because you need to nurse your confidence
- Believing that progress and improvement should be without difficulty or effort
Use setbacks as nuclear fuel for improvement When you start taking this "learning from your setbacks" mentality to the pool, opportunities for improvement start popping up all over the place. (Which is wildly motivating.) - Choke on race day? Time to work on a pre-race routine and a mental prep strategy for success behind the blocks.
- Give up on the main set? Time to use better self-talk to keep pushing when things get touch.
- Not improving at practice? Time to stop bolstering your self-esteem by swimming with slower swimmers and challenging the faster swimmers on your team.
- Struggling to recover between practices? Time to get serious on better sleep habits and meal prepping healthy meals.
Instead of seeing reasons for why you won't be successful in the future, you are busy trying to improve. Your setbacks and failures are trying to tell you something. They are trying to show you a path forward. Take some time today to sit down with your moments of adversity… And learn how you will be better because of them. With you on the journey, Olivier PS: So much of your swimming is dictated by your mindset. When I ask swimmers how much of their swimming is mental, it's almost always up in the 90-95% range. And yet, how much time do you spend actively working on it? Some? A little? Not at all? |
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Now that we have all our entries in for the IMX meet we thought this would be a good time to help you with some race strategies so that you walk in feeling confident. The last thing you want to do is attempt to come up with a plan right before you head to the blocks. Let’s try and come up with that plan now so that we have a couple of weeks to work out any concerns that you may have. Go over your plan for each event in your head several times throughout the next two weeks and one last time as you head for the blocks for each race. We are here to help you have a good experience with this meet. Let's start from the beginning, all your races will start with the dive but how important is it for the longer events that you will be swimming. You are correct if you were thinking this, "I won't win this race with the start" but it does not make the start any less significant. We have talked about finding that easy speed at the start of the race and with a good start and breakout that easy relaxed speed will come naturally into that first turn. You definitely do not want to start and immediately breakout into a slow pace worried about being able to finish the race, it can have disastrous results. It takes a lot more energy to go from a slow speed to a fast speed, so you have to think of building your race to a fast finish. With a great start and breakout you put yourself into a great position physically and mentally, and now it comes down to trusting the hard work you have done and start building your race in a smart way.
A few weeks ago we talked about instead of tackling the entire staircase all at once to tackle each step one at a time. When we relate this to your swimming we can do the same. The first thing that will help is to take each event as it comes. In other words if you are doing the 400 IM on Friday it makes sense that it should command all your attention. Your mind should not be focused on, let's say the 200 breast later in the weekend, you can't do anything about that step until you get to it. Keep your focus on exactly what is in front of you at the moment.
The next step in the process is breaking down the events into smaller races. When you look at the races as a whole they might look somewhat intimidating, but if you break them down they become somewhat more manageable. Take your races and view them like a dollar bill and then break it down into quarters. Swim those races in quarters. Build each quarter as you are swimming and if you stay controlled and handle each quarter well it will add up to a great finish and your $1.00. If your not building or adding interest as you go along your going to come up short each quarter, which means the next one is going to take that much more energy to even stay even. Your going to come up a little short.
IM's As for the races, lets look at our Friday event which is the 400 and the 200 IM. Same race same thought process only difference is one is a little longer. In both races our strategy is to work the back half of the Fly, Back, Breast and the Free is a sprint to the wall. In the 400 that means we are building that second 50 and for the 200 we are building the second 25. We are trying to negative split the back half of each stroke which helps at the transition into the next stroke. This is vital as you can not transition into the next stroke at a slow pace. You cannot go 5 seconds slower on the back end and hope to remain efficient. It goes without saying that are walls have to be aggressive with strong underwater's and breakout. This event comes down to toughness
FREE. Sorry kiddo's no 50, 100, or even 200 here, yes it's the 500. Let's do a little math here, how do we break a $500 bill into quarters. Think of this race as 4 $125 bills and work it like that. That first quarter starts off easy with the dive and just let that speed off the dive and breakout carry you into that first turn. Now it's up to you to carry that speed into the next quarter. The next quarter you want to try and focus on the back half of each 50 or your splits start falling off requiring more energy at the end. The third quarter continue this with more attention on those walls getting you ready for that one last push. Start building that last quarter with each 50 getting faster. Note here is not to wait until that last 50, if you do it requires a lot more energy. Its a gradual building process. You should be entering that last 50 already at a sprint. A couple of "tid bits" to remember, set up your breathing pattern early so that you can maintain a good pace. There are 19 turns in this event. Use them to your advantage and shorten your race.
FLY (200 AND 100). Swim with an easy speed, hold your rhythm and smoothness. You may be thinking easier said than done, but not if you break it into quarters. The race becomes a lot shorter if you can maximize your turns and underwater distance. Think of swimming a perfect fly during each quarter with high hips throughout. The hips are important because if you let them drop your going to be creating drag and will hit exhaustion very quickly. During the third quarter of your race it's time to open up your speed a little and in the last quarter use all your energy and break away.
BACK (200 AND 100). As you explode off the start remember to remain in control, that easy speed will always be there if you are focused. Stay in control of your kick early in this race, they will fail you at the end if you don't control them. The first 2 quarters use a smooth steady kick and start to build them during the third quarter. When you get to the 4th quarter the legs will be there, it may burn a little but let them go, thats why we do those 10 minute kicks during practice. Accelerate during the 3rd quarter and let it all go in the last. Remember those turns, a great way to shorten the race.
BREASTSTROKE (200 and 100) This event is a different beast all in itself. Two critical areas here involve strong pullouts and consistent stroke rate throughout the race. As for the stroke race finish each stroke cycle with a strong kick and then repeat one-one-thousand before you begin the next cycle with a strong catch at the front end. Maintain that rate for the first half of the race and as you move into the third maybe one-thousand will work for you as you build into the last push. As for the pullouts, try to maximize your distance off each wall especially on that last turn as you sprint toward the finish.
Enjoy the opportunity that you have to be able to swim this meet with the long events over three days and really test your toughness.
SENIOR PREP. So what were we trying to accomplish yesterday at practice with those 200’s and the 50’s at the end. Now you all may have thought it was some type of game and in a way it might have been, and you may know it better as the sling slot set. However we were also trying to teach you how to go about YOUR business and practice carefully but properly. One of the positives that has come out of this year is the fact that we are only swimming 4 in a lane giving all of you a great opportunity to really work on your techniques and race strategies. As coaches we are able to really help you with your longer swims (200's) and you should seize on this opportunity and really try on making some big improvements. To many times a swimmer looks at a particular event or distance and immediately their mindset goes from being relax and comfortable to one of instant fear, and sometimes you need to stare that fear down in order to move forward. Again it's all about moving out of your comfort zone and if you are able to do that anything is possible.
Yesterday, as we watched you work through your 200's we saw a lot of you swimming on the feet of the person in front of you. Everyone pushed off to start the set with good intentions but as you closed on the person in front of you the yellow caution light went off in your head and you slowed to a crawl in some instances, and eventually causing each of you hitting the red light at the wall.
Have you ever been in the car with mom or dad on the interstate where there is a car in front of them that is moving at a slower pace. Do your parents slow down? Okay maybe a little bit until an opportunity arises and they signal, move over and accelerates to get around. Does the driver in front stop? No that would create a traffic mess. As we worked on the 50's at the end of practice we were attempting to get you accustomed to being able to pass the swimmer in front of you by "getting skinny" and going down the middle. this is wy it is important to stay to the right and leave the middle open for a passing lane. If coach Paul and I can get "skinny" and pass people when we swim, you should have no problem. The key is to alert them with either a tap on the foot as you pass or a small brush of the legs as you are passing, not hard its all about communicating with each other.
One of the reason we got from a lot of you was that you don't pass because you don't want to be mean. We have to move away from that thought to this mindset, if I pass them I am helping myself improve along with helping them. I remember 2 years ago at the holiday classic when the senior prep group was warming up in the Recreation pool at Mason. The incident involved a swimmer from another team who during warmups just kept going passing people flipping at the wall and just basically going through her routine. To her credit she was not going to allow outside distractions get in her way. Our girls became very frustrated and maybe a little intimidated because this was new. Did it get into their heads and affect their performance, maybe or maybe not, but why not be prepared.
We will visit this set again very soon, you can be assured of that.
JUNIOR GOLD So little ones what were we trying to accomplish this week during practice as we are sure you were a little confused as to why we were doing the exact same practice on Monday and Wednesday. Good observation if you caught it. During the meet this past week we notice a few technical flaws from our groups and what we decided is that it was not from lack of effort but from our body position. An easy fix if you are patient and really focus on what your doing and how your body feels during practice. It may feel to you that it's feels easy, but if you are patient we will all emerge as faster swimmers.
Some key points from this week. One of the things we were trying to get you to focus on is staying tall while doing the drills, thinking of your body as one giant "vessel" that has to have all the parts working together. Our drills this week were not new and included;
 | | HAND LEAD |
| HEAD LEAD
Two other drills and terms we used were stroke counts and sneaky breaths. Why stroke counts? All of you have heard the old saying "Less is Better". Guess what in swimming this is all so true. When you are taking the same amount of strokes on each length you become so much more efficient which translates into faster times. When working on your stroke counts, we pointed out that you have to visualize a point on the bottom of the pool where you are consistently doing your breakouts on every single wall. These drills will help you with your body position while at the same time keeping your body in a good position while reducing drag thus making your swimming more efficient and faster. Be patient. We spend some of the practice going through these drills and than have a little of the practice using what we have done here into a small training segment to see how it all come together for your races.
And you taught swimming was just diving in and going. Hopefully doing these things correctly that is exactly what happens on RACE DAY.
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"Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will." Let’s dive into that quote and see if we can apply it to our swimming or even daily lives. As a swimmer (athlete), being able to to quite that negative and destructive voice in your head can hinder your ability to perform. "Performance = Potential - Interference" Simply stated you will swim, compete and perform your best when you have no interference or mental blocks. Remember our old mental exercise when we kept putting on backpacks, remember that heavy feeling with each additional bag. Thats you trying to swim with all that garbage dancing in your head. You need to develop a mechanism to clear your head of all that garbage. How can you take out that garbage and clear your head, we give you the "4 step R.A.C.E. formula. R for relentless. It comes down to the fact you must be relentless about your ability and your desire to change those negative thoughts in your head that seem like they are out of your control. They are not, you and only you control your thoughts. come up with ways that take you to a good place before your races. A for awareness. Negative thoughts are destructive to your performance, but it comes from a very useful and natural problem solving ability. This thought process is very powerful and will normally win over the positive mindset before you aware it's happening. As a coach we may say things such as; "stop overthinking " or "you just have to believe in yourself" but we also know it's not that easy. It's up to you to get to the source of the problem and get rid of it. C for clear. Think back to when you had a really good race. Remember that felling? What were you thinking? There is a reason why you race the way you do and a reason why you respond and react the way you do and that goes for the negative mindset also. Here are some negative thoughts that all of you have struggled with at some time in your young lives; I'm not good enough. - I don't deserve to win.
- I'm too small.
- I'm not fast enough.
- I don't deserve to win.
- I'm tired.
- I don't feel good.
I really believe that if you keep saying this that eventually it becomes truth and will define you. You need to develop ways to clear these thoughts. Each time you have this thought have a counter thought to clear it. E for emotional mastery. "Thoughts = Emotions = Feelings = Performance" Close your eyes and think about that for a second. If you were to crowd your mind with nothing but positive thoughts and events and think think nothing but positive confidence, positive confidence and more positive confidence, what will happen. Your body is so tight and pumped up or perhaps not pumped up enough that it becomes hard to perform at your best. All that positive thinking for naught, right? As much time as you put in the water, it is important to spend some time with the R.A.C.E. formula to clear the virus that lives between your ears. As a swimmer it is crucial that you learn to stay positive regardless of the results of your races. Take a second and look around and you just might realize that the very best swimmers have races where quite often, they post times that are not their best, or maybe they lose races. In fact these situations occur more regular than the other side of the coin. Let's be honest with ourselves most swimmers if not all find themselves in this situation at some time throughout their swimming and possibly more than once. However the swimmer who is faced with this can find strength in gradual progress from within. If you are a swimmer who has just come off of a bad race or meet go back to practice and see if what kind of effort you can put in. Coach Wendy and I talked to the Gold kids yesterday about what kind of effort that was talked about in last week's post. When you think about effort it's not always about swimming up and down the pool as fast as you can. It is also about paying attention to all the LITTLE things in your swimming that will help you become a better swimmer. When your coaches what you to go ALL OUT they will let you know, but in the meantime pay attention on the LITTLE things we are trying to get out of the set. Often those are the things that make the difference when it comes to dropping times. Think back to when a race didn't turn out the way you envisioned, is there anything that you can improve on such as a turn, underwater, breathing, aggressiveness, strategy, rest, nutrition. A lot to think about. You have no time to dwell on the negative if you want to come back a better you period.
There are so many aspects of swimming that can lead to you feeling down if you let it. But if you are optimistic and have a positive mindset, you can erase those thoughts and find not only a better YOU, but a better place mentally.
This weekend will see the high school swimmers return to their individual school meets and although they may have a different look and feel to it, relish and enjoy in the fact that you are at a meet with your teammates be it at a distance. There are still parts of the country that are unable to practice and train must less compete so enjoy it, treasure the moment and follow the protocols that have been put in place to allow us to do it. For some of you it may have been a while since you have seen or been in each other’s company, maybe up to a year. Their will be the initial period of excitement with what High School swimming has to offer, but remember and understand we are not out of this yet. We have all worked very hard over the year, we have sacrificed and given up things in not only our swimming but also in are daily lives. While we want you to enjoy your meets, we also want want you to remain vigilant by wearing your masks, staying apart and washing those hands. Protect not only yourself but all you Mako teammates and coaches that want to continue training.
When warming up and down do the best you can under the circumstances that you find yourself and remember don’t jump to the negatives look to the positives and control what YOU can control. A technical point I want to make sure you are aware of especially our Freshman, the times you post at High School meets are not official USA swimming times until you arrive at your district meets. This is a perfect opportunity to swim and not worry about your times, and just go out swim/race for places and score points for your teams.
Enjoy your races this weekend.
For our non high school swimmers we have just posted the PVS IMX meet that has recently come out. If you qualify for this meet it provides a great opportunity to swim all of the longer events accumulate a score and compare it to all swimmers throughout the United States. This is a great chance to step outside of the comfort zone that’s 50’s and 100’s offer and really challenge yourself with some longer events and events that you don’ really like. FEAR NOTHING. Take a look and if you qualify please enter because after this weekend I believe we go 7 weeks without a meet and who knows where we’ll be at that time.
So most of you know that I have been a Dallas Cowboy fan for a very long time and now your probably wondering what this has to do with swimming. You need to keep an open mind as I work through the background and try to tie it all into both your swimming and really anything you do in the future. What you may not have know is that Coach Courtney is a big New York Giant fan and in fact a few years ago her kids gave me a Giant Christmas ornament (and yes Courtney I still have it). I made the statement to her daughter Naomi at practice to let her mom know that yes the Giants won but they still aren’t going to the playoffs and better yet the Cowboys get the better pick in the draft. Coach Courtney asked at practice today if I thought the Eagle coach threw the game with Washington. And this is where we try and bring it back to swimming and life.
I let her know that maybe I am a little naive but I don’t believe that any athlete or coach especially at the professional level throws in the towel and just quits. As an athlete when you go out and just don’t try, you are letting your teammates, your coaches and anyone who believes in you down. As an athlete when you are not putting your best effort forward you are disrespecting that sport. Are there times in swimming and life when performance is on a sub-par level? Of course there is, it’s human nature, but you have a responsibility to put your best effort forward at all times. Sometimes that may not be enough and as a coach I can accept that as long as the effort is there.
Each of you if you didn’t already know it now better understand my feelings on lack of effort. I want your effort there always regardless of the results so that at the end of the day you can smile back at that person in the mirror and tell them, “I did my best.”
QUOTE FOR THE WEEK“ Focus on the step in front of you, not the whole staircase.”
I am pretty sure you have heard of this saying at some point in your young life. You might even recall when I’ve reminded you with our saying of “ right foot, left foot, breathe. But what’s it all mean really, well let’s explore and highlight how important that really is. As a swimmer your races don’t start when you step onto the blocks, it begins long before that moment. Some of you may be thinking it starts at practice but you would only be half right. It all begins with that walk into the building and the attitude you walk in with. You can’t do everything at once and you certainly won’t accomplish much with a sour attitude. Understanding what you need to work on and then going out and doing it is not always easy, but with the right attitude those steps become easier to climb. For you all those steps could be as simple as adding 1 dolphin kick to your underwater’s off the wall or maybe as we explained to the Gold Group on Saturday, it might be as simple as touching the pad on the wall every time. Visualize the pad being there. We are sure, no we are positive that everyone has had a race where they look up when they finish and see 00:00:00. Well, guess what it might be because you don’t take your finishes seriously during training. This all came about from Saturday practice as we worked through our fifties and we would challenge some of you, and you responded and did really well. The only problem was we got a lot of this, “but it was hard or it hurt”. Sometimes we see a challenge so great ahead that it seems impossible. Let me give you an example from something I read long ago. “How you walk all the way from the west coast to the east coast? You just take one step at a time. Eventually you’ll get there if you keep going in the right direction.” Why do we relax as we come to the wall instead of attacking the wall? Why do we breathe after the flags? Why do we not do strong pullouts off the walls? These are the steps that you need to fix during practice so that in a race they are automatic and as you look back you realize that the little things really do matter. When you don’t focus on challenging yourself to fix them you stop going in the right direction.
Now that the holidays are over, we want to wish you a happy new year. Here is hoping that your year gets off to a great start at home, academically, in the pool and with any other endeavors that you undertake in 2021. The new year will bring an end to our abbreviated holiday training tomorrow with a fast sprinting set, but it also will be a start with a clean slate and allows you a chance to review your goals and set some New Year's Resolutions to help you reach those goals. Although you already have made your goals at the beginning of our season, we can always use New Year's as a time to make resolutions to enhance your goals.
New Year, New You, New Swimmer Some of you may not have set goals back in September and thats okay, but let's make 2021 the year to change that. You should always take a few moments each season and set some goals for yourself. These goals can relate to many areas of your swimming and they don't always have to be result oriented. These goals not only have to relate to the times or cuts that you want to achieve, but they can also be specific to stroke work, practice habits, and don't forget ab out nutrition, rest, sleep and hydration. They are all tied into that big time drop or cut you dream about. Turn your dreams into reality.
When you look make or review these goals, always keep that dream goal in mind. what are all these little goals gearing you up for? Districts? Records? Cuts for a bigger meet?
Here are some simple goals that don't have a time attached to them, but just maybe will help you along the way to achieve that time. - Sleep more
- Eat healthy foods
- Stay hydrated during the day
- Stand up straight. good posture will not only make you swim faster, but it will you look more attractive and confident. It will also decrease your chances for shoulder and back injuries now and later in life.
- Body position during practice. head in line with spine and swim tall.
- Streamline off every wall. Your not superman or superwoman so stop pushing off with your hands apart. it's laziness.
- Perfect the drills
- Make every turn and finish that you do legal. Do it the way you will in a race.
- Breathing. Sty balanced in your breathing during your repeats.
- Teammates. Help and encourage them during training.
- Visualize susses. The difference between winning and losing is 99% mental
If you haven't set goals before, Make it your New Year's Resolution this year to start setting them. They will not only help with your swimming but also life. You Know where to start now.
Quote of the week
"I'M GOING TO MAKE YOU SO PROUD" note to self
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